Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany will be published by Kensington on January 21, 2025
This outstanding, inspiring new narrative of the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, reveals the full, never-before-told story of her role in saving Jewish refugees during the Nazi regime.
She was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, the longest-serving labor secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. Yet beyond these celebrated accomplishments there is another dimension to Frances Perkins’s story. Without fanfare, and despite powerful opposition, Perkins helped save the lives of countless Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.
“Immigration problems usually have to be decided in a few days. They involve human lives. There can be no delaying,” Perkins wrote in her memoir, The Roosevelt I Knew. In March 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor by FDR. As Hitler rose to power, thousands of German-Jewish refugees and their loved ones reached out to the INS—then part of the Labor Department—applying for immigration to the United States, writing letters that began “Dear Miss Perkins . . .”
Perkins’s early experiences working in Chicago’s famed Hull House, and as a firsthand witness to the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire, shaped her determination to advocate for immigrants and refugees. As Secretary of Labor, she wrestled widespread antisemitism and isolationism, finding creative ways to work around quotas and restrictive immigration laws. Diligent, resilient, empathetic, yet steadfast, she persisted on behalf of the desperate when others refused to act.
Based on extensive research, including thousands of letters housed in the National Archives, Dear Miss Perkins adds new dimension to an already extraordinary life story, revealing at last how one woman tried to steer the nation to a better, more righteous course.
Praise for Dear Miss Perkins
“Finally, proper attention is being paid to Frances Perkins and her dogged efforts to aid European Jews during the Holocaust. Rebecca Brenner Graham’s expansive and modern telling reminds us that there are historical figures to whom we can—and should—look for inspiration as we continue to face some of the same xenophobic, racist, antisemitic dynamics as Perkins did in the 1930s. You’ll emerge from this book with a new hero.” —Rebecca Erbelding, Holocaust historian and author of the National Jewish Book Award-winning Rescue Board
“Dear Miss Perkins offers a refreshing millennial perspective on the history of American immigration policy through the actions of Frances Perkins, one of the most underappreciated women of the Roosevelt era. Meticulously researched and detailed, it goes far beyond Miss Perkins’s efforts to help Jewish refugees prior to the war. Dr. Graham paints a compelling portrait of a quiet hero who transcended the misogyny of her time, shattered glass ceilings, and rewrote the rules for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” —Paul Sparrow, former Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum